


he can't find your eyes or heart

by Silvereye



Category: The Traitor Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Genre: Chocolate Box Treat, Drunken Kissing, Hate Kissing, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-09
Updated: 2019-02-09
Packaged: 2019-10-24 23:46:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17713970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silvereye/pseuds/Silvereye
Summary: Cairdine Farrier and Cosgrad Torrinde during their stay in Oriati Mbo, after a party, and their unwise decisions.





	he can't find your eyes or heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Shadaras](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadaras/gifts).



> Both characters are drunk and don't really... discuss... anything. It didn't seem to warrant dubious consent tag, but please take care if you know you're very much not into that.
> 
> Shadaras - I saw "Itinerant/Hesychast" and "hatefucking" in your letter and my brain went to "ok but hatekissing" in 0.2 seconds.
> 
> Title inspired by Katie Stelmanis' "In My Favour".

The weather is not suitable for a party, but the Prince's Hill has thrown one nonetheless. The humidity of an earlier rainfall lingers in the air. It is still hot long after the evening has slanted into the night and most everyone has surrendered to exhaustion.

You wonder if Tau-indi is still awake. You know better than to go looking. For one, it would be unseemly. You are Tau-indi's tutor, or perhaps Tau-indi is yours, but when a man grown is stumbling around in the night looking for a much younger Federated Prince the situation gets... snarled.

For another, you are quite alarmingly drunk. There is a possibility your legs would not obey you, isometric exercise or not.

These things are certain: you are Cosgrad Torrinde. You serve the woman called Renascent and through her, Falcrest. And you are going to lose, because you cannot tally up the Oriati Mbo, but Cairdine Farrier will likely think of something.

"Still up?"

Think of the bastard and the bastard appears. "Please leave," you say.

Farrier does not leave. Instead he sits next to you, picks up your bottle, inspects it and takes a swig. Such endearing curiosity. He needs not affect it, as there is no one here to observe you. Perhaps he is simply unable to stop by now.

"They are very likable," he says after a while. Oh, he's quite drunk, too.

You grunt. You are not going to develop maudlin conversation with Cairdine damned Farrier, no matter how inebriated both of you are.

"It does not have to be like that," he says when it's clear you will give no better answer. "There is certainly a strategy where we both win."

You turn your head and look at him. Seemingly guileless. You would believe it if you didn't know him. But you do, and thus you say: "I may be drunk, but not nearly drunk enough to believe that, Farrier."

He observes you, eyes glinting in the far-off light of the dying bonfires. Then he leans closer, slowly, slowly, giving you enough time to push him away or test those inebriated legs or – to do anything, really. Anything besides staying precisely where you are and letting him kiss you.

Well. There's not much "let" about it, actually, because once his lips touch yours you stop pretending to be a statue and grasp the front of his kaftan with both hands. He tastes like liquor, both yours and a sharper one underneath. He kisses like he means it, with tongue, eventually cupping your face with one hand, sliding his fingers through the errant hairs that cannot be convinced to stay in their place when it's this humid. He never closes his eyes. Neither do you.

You want this. You want to slide the kaftan off his shoulders and draw the shirt out of the way and kiss his neck, bite it, do many things to Cairdine Farrier that the Metademe forbids and the Oriati do not. You must not want this. So you twist your head to the side and try to catch your breath. His hand tightens in your hair for a moment. Then he lets go.

"Even you cannot go against your nature," you say and concentrate on the sound of night insects outside, on the way the fires yet flicker in the distance, anything but your body and his. Pleasant Cairdine Farrier, amiable Cairdine Farrier. Not precisely a sodomite, but something alike, and it seems he does not refrain from kissing men.

He smiles. "Oh, but I can. I can decide to never do this again. And must I really point out you were the one to end this?"

Awkward Cosgrad Torrinde. Something closer to a sodomite than Cairdine Farrier, even if not all the way there, and convinced to exercise self-control like he exercises any other part of himself.

Sometimes you wonder what secret Renascent hides in her heart. You would like to know, but you are not certain you truly want to.

"Was there anything else?" you ask.

Farrier pretends to consider. "No. Not really. Good night, Cosgrad."

He leaves and you are alone with your bottle. You lift it, turn it around in hands unsteady from too much alcohol and that kiss. It was a good liquor; now that Farrier has drunk from it there's really no saving it. You pour it out. Then you hold your head with both hands, feeling miserably sick, but nowhere near throwing up.

Why is there no rule in the world that can hold Cairdine Farrier? You are more clever, better academically, your theories generally more robust, but Cairdine Farrier knows a secret about people that you do not and somehow this outweighs all your advantages. With both of your lucks he will remember the kiss in the morning and you will not and there will be yet another needle he could use against you.

(You will not remember, and neither will he. There is some mercy yet in the world.)


End file.
